The Wraith
by nohfase
Summary: Barricade and the repercussions of an act of vengeance that comes back times three.
1. Chapter 1

a/n: yes. I OBVIOUSLY a multimillion dollar entertainment source. right. just like i'm currently the queen of england.

**Disclaimer**: like all the rest of you, i own dirty socks and a few nickels not **Transformers**.

set in 2007 movieverse & AU

The

_W. r. a. i. t. h_

Prologue

* * *

A Saleen Mustang coasted at an easy pace past an old warehouse. People avoided the police cruiser even with its lights off – the police were not known for their kindness.

The Mustang's windows were tinted almost to the point of illegality, and with it being so dark, no one, if there had been anyone who cared enough to look, would see a driver; or anyone in the car for that matter.

Barricade's systems were not running at their full capacity, but they were giving warning signals, unnatural heat signals coming from within his cab – something that he was warned of every night. He rounded a corner away from eyes. His systems were still erratic.

Movement – a detection of movement that had him stiffen on his shocks and do something so disgustingly human – _pray to the Matrix_ _that it wasn't_ –

From the backseat, he felt the leather interior being touched, gently so and something clambered to the passenger seat to sink down in a comfortable position. Breath fogged his window. It smelled clean; toothpaste and sweet gum.

Something warm touched his dash and groped for the radio, like someone without eyes. The dial to the volume was turned up moderately and he felt small warmth push the seek button several times before settling on a station. The sound of harp strings filled Barricade's cab.

Bright blue eyes looked into his rear view mirror, all long lashes, bronze skin and dark wavy hair. It – whatever it was – offered no facial expression, but the organic – was it an organic still? – drummed little fleshy fingers on the leather panel of his door. Barricade let himself sink on his shocks just an inch or so, still alert and cautious around the once-perhaps-still-is organic.

He recognized it, without vagueness and with utmost clarity in his memory banks, as Megatron's killer's companion. He remembered the femme as the one who had sawed off Frenzy's head, and the one who helped the destruction of the All Spark –

_I slept all day _

_I awoke with distaste _

The radio kept playing and the woman's vocals fragged with his concentration. The Decepticon didn't dare to shut the radio off or turn the sound down despite this.

_And I railed_

_And I raved_

The fingers kept drumming on the door, and the female started to hum with the tune. Head of wavy hair bobbed, fake gold hooped ear-jewelry glittering. Barricade backed into another alley, hiding him-self from others; not wishing to be seen even in the dark of the night and under dim, flickering yellow streetlights.

_That the difference between_

_The sprout and the bean_

He tried not listening to the song, or the humming or the drumming of fingers. He saw her see something on his dashboard. He waited for the inevitable. She reached across and grasped the yellow and black cardboard trinket. The smirking bee that had the print spelling out **Bee-otch** was turned over in her fingers.

_It is a golden ring_

_It is a twisted string_

Barricade watched, in dread and morbid wonder alike, as her nicely fit, pretty bronze skin curled back from the left side of her face, to leave the white of bone and black of flesh behind. He smelt the odor of singed hair; the scents of charred cotton and skin permeate in his interior.

_And you can ask the counselor _

_And you can ask the king_

She lifted her eyes back up to him. One blue eye stared at him, its eyebrow seared off and her other optic was a grotesquely empty, melted socket that offered only a black hole. Barricade waited. He didn't touch the dial of his radio, nor did he peel out and attempt to throw her out. He'd been through the motions before. He'd tried it all before.

_And I'll say the same thing_

_And it's a funny thing_

The cheap knick-knack was placed back on his dashboard, and the tense moment passed. She did nothing this time, choosing instead to ignore the burns on her arms and face and the not-blood pouring out of her right side. She tapped a rhythm on the door again with her fingers, missing the tip of one and only having a cauterized stump of another. Uneven breath fogged his window again. She started humming again, not looking into the mirrors but out at the alley wall.

_Should we go outside_

_Should we go outside_

Barricade sunk on his shocks, relaxing only slightly. He found out the hard way that she - whatever she was anymore – would not leave, ever under any circumstance. The yellow-black decoration was testament to that. With the not-organic female around so much – _shadowing following haunting stalking_ – the absence of Frenzy was so much more conspicuous if she hadn't been.

Barricade was alerted from his thoughts when he heard sirens and the deep rumble of a Peterbilt truck. He tensed but didn't move. They passed by without incidence.

Barricade saw the not-organic looking in his rear view mirror again, scars and the not-blood gone to leave bronze skin and dark hair. Blue eyes, blue like an Autobot's, watched him – two eyes now, the gross sight gone.

Mikaela Banes, the organic femme he'd killed two months ago, turned the heater on even though she had no physical means to feel it. By all natural laws she shouldn't be here, in his cab, tapping her fingers – now whole and unburned – against the black leather. She should be worm-feed. He shouldn't feel her body heat. She isn't a guilty conscience that much he knows, but as he was one of Megatron's spies he can't be completely sure that this isn't insanity. He doesn't know what she is. His scanners recognize her. He can feel her. He can see her. He can smell her for Primus' sake. She is a paradox; folded on it-self three times and folded back twice.

_Should we break some bread_

_Are you interested_

She looked back in the mirror, still humming and bobbing her hair; fake gold glittering in her mass of hair.

…

xox

Hope it was alright, r/r if it was, or wasn't. Much obliged. :D


	2. Faulty unity

**a/n**: 1st chapter will be edited due to...numerous grammar errors, second chapter up...and to correct my earlier assumption that this would be formatted as a 'story', it has been turned into a mutant hybrid: strabble. story/drabble series of sorts. Reviews are as always appreciated.

* * *

Waiting here on earth, Barricade could feel himself rusting slowly. The Decepticon cause was dead – Megatron had been terminated by a human boy; a mere squishy Sparkling, Starscream the second in command fled, Blackout, Bonecrusher and Brawl KIA, and Barricade. Barricade was left here, deserted and alone. More so alone than he'd ever been made aware of before, in all his eons of existence.

He was by nature a solitary creature. He'd received Frenzy simply because mechs like him didn't really believe in group work – he was made as a shock trooper; a ranger.

Frenzy was of the same such breed – when he'd been alive.

Barricade drove through the freeway in the early morn hours, steering around the vehicles in front of him.

A shift from the backseat didn't startle him as it would have a couple of weeks ago. It was to be expected. The presence rarely left his side, choosing instead to remain in his interior. The few times he'd attempted to reach Tranquility in a desperate measure to get rid of her, she melted into him. Going inside of his processor, she'd felt around at the wires and compartments, becoming a virus that drove him insane.

She'd felt at his early memories, when he'd been born a soldier for Megatron and molded from indiscriminate hatred and anger for the Autobots, whose cause was so like theirs. She watched through his eyes that became inconsistent flashbacks for him at the same time, as galaxies and nebulas weren't beautiful as they were far away, watched as suns caved and watched his comrades die like she did.

Painfully.

She hadn't skimmed those memories over like she did with the beauty in some of the planets he'd been to, she indulged in them and flipped through them like a book's pages. In doing so, she'd revealed some of her memories – whether as a package deal, side effect or willingly Barricade was unsure – of the human boy, the Autobots, faces and actions blurring too fast for him to recount properly.

He'd been forced to skirt around Tranquility, and she left him be, going through his memories and replacing them with hers at times. She replaced a few of his battle-experiences with day dream hazes of laughter and teenage carelessness.

Besides that little adventure, there was nothing else he could do. He'd attempted to contact outside Decepticon forces, but the stratosphere fragged with the communications. He had no signal, for it had been damaged in his encounter with the yellow Autobot.

There was no plan he could concoct yet, but he knew that of all the Decepticons that would probably get some small piece of his transmission would probably be either Shockwave or Soundwave.

Starscream, if he returned at all, would bring reinforcements doubtlessly.

Blue eyes stared almost unseeingly in his rearview mirror. Her legs were crossed and her fingers toyed with locks of her hair. No. Barricade would never be able to exact revenge on the Autobots as quickly as he could hope; the femme had taken to stalking and being with him – pulling memories and causing hallucinations in her vengeful grudge.

The radio turned on, static and buzzing, Barricade took a left turn. Her mouth was moving then, incredibly fast and forming words he couldn't hear. The radio's sound turned up unholy decibels and a voice crept through his sound system: "_Where…it…now…where…it…gone now_?" the voice was nothing more than a croak, pained and gurgling. As if choking on a liquid substance.

The femme had turned her face to look out the backseat window, watching the scenery. Occasionally, her shoulder or head would tweak frantically, blurring in massive not-movements and her mouth would babble something at light speed without issuing a single sound.

Her fingernails dug sharply into the leather seating.

His sensors, sensing something that was there but wasn't supposed to be were going off in alarm, warning rings and system errors flashing before his optics. The tension, her tension, whatever it was affecting him. He revved his engine and threw his sirens on, lights flashing, as he bypassed the human vehicles. Something strange was happening and he didn't know what. Whatever the femme was sensing was bad – something ominous.

Two parts horrified and resigned, Barricade watched while her side began pouring blood out that he could feel on his seating, but he knew wouldn't be there later, as half her face melted away, skin peeling back and one blue eye stared at him accusingly.

"_Going, going, going…going…gone._"


	3. omens

Megatron towered over him, roaring and laughing at him from his seat on a throne made of polished bone and rotting corpses. The dark forms of other Decepticons surrounded him from their vantage points in the darkness. The floor, compacted rubble and human remains, stuck at his feet and made his nasal processors sting.

Megatron's enormous hand scooped up a handful of humans and squashed them, enjoying their shrieks of pain before he tossed them at Barricade's feet. "Barricade, Starscream has informed me that you were not present during the disaster scene of Mission City." His sharp, sharp teeth gnashed, "Why were you not there?"

Barricade bowed his head, "I was on my way"-

Megatron roared and smashed his fist into the arm of his throne. "The battle was over while you were on your way you slagging thin skinned organic."

Barricade let the offensive phrase slide off him. "I was intercepted by human police officers."

Megatron snarled viciously, "Lies, you fragging coward. Mutiny in the Decepticon army is punishable by death," he said, looking down at Barricade with narrowed eyes. "You left your brethren to die, Barricade." He smiled, baring those hideous hound-like teeth, "Now you will be ripped apart by them."

Barricade felt them closing in, the dark forms of the Decepticons he still couldn't see clearly. Something else caught his eye.

In front of Megatron's foot was the organic femme. She stared up at him without an expression on her face. It was whole, unburned and her body was as healthy as it had been. Her blue eyes – blue like an Autobot's – watched him intently as the others closed in around him. Her mouth was forming words and he couldn't hear them, again.

Then, as he allowed his body to relax even as his comrades surrounded him with weapons drawn and sadistic grins, he could hear her.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again." She watched him watch her and Barricade felt as if his body were weighed down by tons of aquatic pressure – he was being pulled asunder by something he couldn't quite understand.

The organic femme; blue eyed, black haired and tan limbed played with a lock of her hair, watching him with the most queer expression on her face Barricade had even bore witness to.

His comrades, shadowed and hungry and vengeful, fell upon him like starving carrions.

Barricade's systems slipped from recharge into a rather high alert mode. From his place in an alley, he could see no sign of other life forms milling about as he'd seen some strangely dressed females, or poorly dressed males and children do. It seemed unnaturally quiet here.

Looking into his rearview mirror was the femme. She was not fidgeting, or spasmodically twitching as she had recently taken to doing, but rather in a strange turn of events, she was also not fragging with his sound system or thrumming her fingers against his leather seating. Currently, she was simply looking into his mirror with a look that held something that made Barricade's metal plates crawl.

She sat with her legs crossed and she looked to be mimicking breathing like any normal organic species.

She spread her hands on his leather seats and held them there flat. She looked down at her hands, before looking up at him.

She smiled, showing her white, white teeth and he heard a ripple of thought that wasn't his echo through his processor. "_I wonder what ever happened to Humpty that day_."

…

'Til next time folks, good? Bad? You be the judge and give the verdict for me ;)


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